history of jews

Jewish history (or the history of the Jewish people) is the history of the Jews, and their religion and culture,- as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Although Judaism as a religion appears in Greek records first during the Hellenistic period and the earliest mention of Israel is inscribed on the Merneptah Stele dated 1213-1203 BCE, religious literature tells the story of a period of Babylonian captivity, a destruction of a First Temple, and the ancient Israelites going back at least as far as c. 1500 BCE. The Jewish diaspora began with the Assyrian conquest and continued on a much larger scale with the Babylonian conquest. Jews were also widespread throughout the Roman Empire, and this carried on to a lesser extent in the period of Byzantine rule in the central and eastern Mediterranean. In 638 CE the Byzantine Empire lost control of the Levant. The Arab Islamic Empire under Caliph Omarconquered Jerusalem and the lands of Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt and Jews suffered massacres.[citation needed] The Golden Age of Jewish culture in Spain coincided with the

Middle Ages in Europe, a period of Muslim rule throughout much of the Iberian Peninsula. During that time, Jews were generally accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life blossomed.